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Monday, February 11, 2013

So, the defining battle of our time has been fought, and won, and now it's official:

is better than

Or, at least, Somebody That I Used To Know has bested We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together for Record Of The Year at the Grammys.

For reasons that have never been convincingly explained, of course, the 'record of the year' isn't the same thing as 'song of the year' - and here, We Are Young (or 'We Are Writing The Song So We Can Live Off The Royalties For The Next Ten Years Whenever A Lazy Montage Sequence On The TV Features People Who Are Young', to give it its full name) bested Call Me Maybe.

Yes, you read that right. The Grammys jury went with the wispy beard over the obviously great song.

The best album went to Mumford And Sons for Babel. With every high-profile award, the whole point of the band seems harder and harder to discern. They're a bit like Ben And Jerrys now - you might like to read the homespun, earth-friendly packaging, but you can't ignore that it's being dumped into cartons by Unilever.

Adele managed to get an award in a quiet year - not for Skyfall, even the Grammys wouldn't push it that far - but for a live track from Live At The Albert Hall. That sounds a bit like chearing.

In 2013, Dan Auerbach and the Black Keys were the biggest winners, taking home four trophies. Skrillex claimed three, as did Gotye, Jay-Z and Kayne West.

Black Keys did at least bring Dr John on for their 'surprise! we're doing a collaboration' bit, which was a way of sneaking a true legend onto prime time CBS.

At the more hackneyed end of s!wdac was Ed Sheeran coming on with Elton John, which I think makes Sheeran the new Pete Doherty.

The Wall Street Journal's description of the closing number sounds like the sort of thing that would have been tolerable if you were a bit drunk:

The show closed with another performance that brought together unlikely, if aging, pioneers of different genres. A pair of rap icons who rose to prominence in the 1980s—Chuck D, of the group Public Enemy, and LL Cool J, also the show's host—was backed by a band that included hard rock musicians from the 1990s: Guitarist Tom Morello, of Rage Against the Machine, and drummer Travis Barker of Blink-182.

As is now traditional, Chris Brown marked the event by being an enormous asshole. Dawn reports:

R&B singer Chris Brown showed up smiling at the Grammy Awards show on Sunday, saying he was just a little banged up after crashing his car into a wall on the eve of the annual music industry awards.

Of course he's not worried about smashing his car to pieces on the way to the awards. He did the same thing to Rihanna en route a couple of years back, and that didn't cause him any problems.

Best line in all the coverage goes to the New York Times, and Ben Ratliff:

Taylor Swift opened the CBS telecast performing “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” — with freaky clowns, stilt-walking experts, parasols, a large white rabbit, like a well-coordinated Burning Man happening or a late-period White Stripes photo shoot.

Without any further ado, here's the names and details of the winners:

1. RECORD OF THE YEAR
Somebody That I Used To Know
Gotye Featuring Kimbra
Wally De Backer, producer; Wally De Backer & Francois Tetaz, engineers/mixers; William Bowden, mastering engineer
Track from: Making Mirrors
Label: Universal Republic

5. BEST POP SOLO PERFORMANCE
Set Fire To The Rain [Live]
Adele
Track from: Live At The Royal Albert Hall
Label: XL/Columbia
6. BEST POP DUO/GROUP PERFORMANCE
Somebody That I Used To Know
Gotye Featuring Kimbra
Track from: Making Mirrors
Label: Universal Republic